


Salvation in the Smiles of Saints

by Eristastic



Series: Fem&Blood [1]
Category: Flesh & Blood - Matusoka Natsuki
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Trans, Character Study, F/F, Fairy Tale Elements, Internalized Homophobia, Pining, Religious Discussion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28504218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eristastic/pseuds/Eristastic
Summary: (How can there be forgiveness for this? I pose as a man and feel the love, the desire of a man, and am not one: am I not then an abomination? What is honour, duty, when my very existence must offend anyone’s decency?)Vicente-centred vignette in a (sort of) genderswapped universe, or, how a very Catholic 16th century woman rationalises her feelings for her own sex.
Relationships: Kaito Tougo/Vicente de Mendoza
Series: Fem&Blood [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2087952
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	Salvation in the Smiles of Saints

**Author's Note:**

> No one's going to read this but on the off-chance f&b ever gets an english release and it gets popular, I want it known that I was here first.
> 
> I've done more work on this au since and ironed out some of the wrinkles that show up here (names, how Alonso would work, the use of in-text Spanish, how the plot would work in the first place) but it's been a hard year and I'm not rewriting this one. 
> 
> For my own piece of mind: Kaito's 19 in this one and trans. I thought that all the historical research and Bible studies necessary to write f&b fic wasn't hard enough and decided to challenge myself with working out how this au would work, apparently.

Some thirty minutes’ walk from the town of Pastrana stood the Carmen convent, a Franciscan establishment, and newly-built. Adhering to the teachings of its patron saint, the architecture was bare and the lifestyle frugal: the fleeting glimpse Vicente de Mendoza had caught of the interior had been of women entirely content with their lives in the bucolic and rather dull scenery in which their convent was built — but there were always exceptions.

“You can’t fault the sights,” Señorita Raul de Toledo, the erstwhile Sister Raul, said with a sigh that suggested she very much could. “There’s nothing to object to in the sights, but after the summer palace, one cannot but find it tedious — don’t you think so?”

Vicente didn’t much want to talk to her at all, and didn’t look down. Gravel and sand crunched under her boots as they descended the steps towards the meagre gardens that easily blended into the countryside beyond.

“You haven’t replied, Señor de Mendoza,” Raul said pleasantly. “Have I offended you in some way?”

“Perish the thought,” Vicente said without looking at her.

“I am so glad to hear it: I should dearly wish for us to always be friends.”

Vicente nodded vaguely.

( _I wouldn_ _’t have come if letters hadn’t arrived for you at the ducal palace. Even then, I wouldn’t have come if not for Kaito._ )

The younger girl was a little way ahead, hitching her skirts above her heels like Vicente always told her not to as she peered down at something hidden underneath a juniper bush. Butterflies in white and orange fluttered around her like they were attracted to the vivid red of her hair; Vicente sympathised. Sometimes when she wasn’t paying attention, she found herself moving closer too, as if lured in by the promise of nectar.

( _It_ _’s her smile. It’s always been her smile. The angels themselves could not smile like that._ )

Her anger and displeasure were well known to Vicente now: like old friends, they barely hurt, and it was better to be glared at by Kaito than ignored by her. But during their time at el Escorial, she had begun to smile: as if unconsciously, as if unaware, she would smile when she turned around to see Vicente or Leo (or, admittedly, Alonso, but Vicente tried not to give that too much thought). It was enough to give one hope that she might in time forget the English she-devil who had treated her so ill. It was enough to give one hope that she could be happy here, in the heat of the Spanish summer, where she might bloom.

“Do you find the air agrees with you?” Raul was still talking. “I don’t. I suppose the same must be true for the invalid. I’d be surprised if she’s seen any improvement — has she?”

They both watched Kaito now. Vicente shook her head, resisting the urge to run over when Kaito almost tripped over an unexpected root. “Her throat still hasn’t recovered: she complains of it. Is there anything else you can do?"

“I’m quite at a loss,” Raul admitted with unforgivable unconcern. “I would have thought the poison’s effects would have worn off by now. Perhaps they heal slower in Jipang. In that eventuality, I can only do what all the best doctors do and suggest a great deal of rest. Less of this gadding about in the countryside.”

“She insisted.”

“Did she? Did she insist on coming alone with you too?”

The heat was oppressive in Vicente’s tightly-buttoned doublet, the shirt and layer of restraining bandages beneath it, but she felt something cold creep down her back when she looked over to see those knowing eyes watching her. Very almost formally dispensed with her vows so she might take her place as her father’s sole heir following the terrible death of her brother, Raul still wore her habit, but it didn’t suit her. There was something reptilian in her smile, and when a wispy cloud passed over the sun, its light flashed gold in her eyes.

“The Mother Superior was very put out,” she said in that smooth, low voice like the purr of a cat who has been successful in the hunt. “Even I was shocked. We all quite understood the necessary impropriety of how you brought her back from England, but what was the point of His Majesty assigning Señora de Leiva as a chaperone if you won’t use her? Things might well be more relaxed away from court, but as a friend I must warn you to be more cautious, señor. A strapping young bachelor like yourself should not be alone with a girl of marriageable age.”

“Your worry is unfounded,” Vicente said irritably, though she couldn’t quite place why she was irritated. This woman always got under her skin. “Kaito will not be marrying, and has no reputation to worry about: she belongs to His Majesty, and as he has graciously allowed me to look after her, she remains in my care. She is safe there.”

“Safety, with a man? She might be odd-looking but she’s a very pretty seventeen-year-old: surely there can be no such thing.”

“Let us be clear on this so there can be no confusion,” Vicente growled despite herself, reaching the end of the garden and stopping before the steps that would lead back to the road. “If you mean to cast aspersions on my honour, tell me now and we shall no longer be friends, as you call us, and I shall no longer burden you with my company.”

She knew she sounded too defensive, but she had much to defend. Maybe Kaito didn’t have a reputation, as the king’s slave, but she had honour, and Vicente was protecting it. That was all.

Raul smiled wryly. “Oh, I couldn’t have that. I so hate to think that I might have offended you: accept my apologies, do. Of course the girl is safe with you. I’m sure you look on her with the eyes of a brother.”

Conscious that she had already given too much away, Vicente now gave only a curt bow, saying, “Then all is harmonious between us once more. But I worry for Kaito’s health: I have delivered your letters, and now you must excuse me.”

“Regretfully, I do.” Raul made a curtsy that never could have been called graceful, and took a step back, every part of her demure, but the sum of her something quite different. With a smile and eyes that glowed gold under the midday sun, she said, “It’s so easy to talk to you. Growing up only among women, I find it so hard to talk to men, but it is never a trial with you.”

The comment wasn’t innocent. Weeks of such comments had taught Vicente that — but this was an insinuation easier to swallow than the earlier accusations.

“I’m flattered,” she said, and bowed again, and turned, calling for Kaito, who looked up, smiled, and hurried over with none of the dignity her chaperone laughingly tried to instill in her. But she was always polite: with memorised phrases and faltering Spanish, she bid Raul a good afternoon, and then she and Vicente walked down the steps to the road.

( _She_ _’s watching. If I turn around, she’ll be there, watching, as if she thinks she’ll uncover it all if she looks long enough._ )

The difficulty was that she’d already done what not even the king had, and uncovered half of it. But Vicente felt no fear for herself: if she’d wanted the freedom to feel fear, she ought never to have begun the masquerade that ruled her life now.

She felt strangely naked under Raul’s eyes, but it was protectiveness, not discomfort, that drove her to place a hand on the small of Kaito’s back, bringing her just a little closer, as if Vicente’s arm alone could protect her from the eyes of the world.

***

Vicente hadn’t understood when she’d first found out. They’d quarrelled, badly. It hadn’t been Kaito’s fault: she’d been in a state of high distress, half-drowned from her suicidal attempt at escape back to a country that wasn’t hers, back to arms that could only corrupt her. Drenched to the bone in Vicente’s cabin, wearing only a soaked shift that disguised nothing, she had laughed bitterly in the face of Vicente’s stupefaction and said she’d known Vicente wouldn’t understand. Holding trembling knees to her flat chest, she’d laughed like she was trying not to cry and said that her heretical captain was the only one who would ever understand her, and she’d rather die than live without her.

It hadn’t come to that, and wouldn’t. Vicente had worked hard to reassure her that she was valued here, and that there was thus no need to go back to the she-devil’s clutches: even when Leo found out and recoiled in disgust, he agreed (through gritted teeth) to be understanding when Vicente reminded him of his position. As a knight and knight-in-training of Spain, they had a duty to respect the dignity of others. As Kaito told it, in the country of her birth, men and women were not defined as here, and though Vicente’s nature rebelled, she was in no place to tell Kaito she was wrong about her own self — that, she had learnt when she had, in fact, told her and seen the pain it had caused.

( _God doesn_ _’t make mistakes. If her people measure womanhood differently, that is how God made them: nothing about her is wrong, or a mistake. Not like me._ )

Under the dappled afternoon sunlight that fell through the trees, Vicente stopped and felt the breeze lift the short hair on her nape. At the start, she’d justified it in a number of different ways: she’d reminded herself that women often shore their hair off to get rid of lice — and didn’t nuns do the same to expel vanity?

( _It wasn_ _’t the same. I did this for my country, for my sister’s memory, not for my god. I have spent my whole life trying to repent, and it won’t ever be enough. The sin persists._ )

She had never had much to boast of in the way of femininity. She was tall and thin and hard where other women were soft; her breasts were small and after so many years of binding them, some days (at sea, weeks in, when everyone had seen everyone enough to be sick of the sight of them and wouldn’t notice a small change) she didn’t bother to bind them. The lines of her face were harsh and her voice was naturally low: she made a beautiful man, she was told.

( _If I could swap my body with hers, I would. If I could give her the body she needs to live freely here, I would: Heaven knows little would change for me._ )

But God didn’t make mistakes. A beautiful man she might make, but a man she was not: this mistake was hers.

It was not her only one.

‘Vicente?’

Kaito had realised she wasn’t being followed and turned around: under the pine trees, she stood with the breeze lifting the ends of her crimson hair, just brushing over her collarbones. Her black eyes were like the eyes of a rabbit, deep and comforting as the night, and Vicente could almost see rabbit ears on her head as she cocked her head to the side curiously. ‘Is anything wrong?’

A smile broke on Vicente's mouth of its own accord. ‘I was only thinking.’

‘That’s new.’

The smile widened: unable to stop herself, she walked forwards, her footsteps on the hollow earth beating against the rustle of water from the River Vega. ‘Are you in such a hurry to go back? I thought you felt suffocated.’

‘Well, I _do_ but the heat is suffocating me out here too. My chest feels tight,’ she said, patting it, and Vicente took her thin wrists in a hand, lifting her jaw up with the other.

‘You’re pale,’ she said, turning Kaito’s face to the side with all the gentleness she deserved. Kaito blinked up at her, and smiled wryly.

‘I’m always pale. _Someone_ won’t let me go outside without permission. Leo keeps grumbling about it, you know, and A—…and Señora de Leiva says she thinks more air would do me good.’

‘Then we shall take more walks.’

‘With Señora de Leiva?’ she asked mischievously, and laughed at the face Vicente made. She turned away, a brush-stroke of colour against the scenery bleached beige like canvas under the sun. ‘Don’t look at me like that: think of what people will say otherwise! We can’t have a young girl alone with a big scary bachelor like you, Señorita de Mendoza,’ she said, her eyes glittering with amusement at the joke.

Vicente curled her fingers into her palm, trying to forget how it had felt to hold her. She didn’t want to talk about this. She didn’t want Kaito to be aware of it. ‘You were listening.’

‘I was. I can’t believe you got told off by a nun. How are you going to live that one down?’

‘I’ll manage it if you forgive me.’

Kaito turned around, walking backwards now with her hands behind her back and that irresistible smile on her lips. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she concluded, and whirled around again, her hair dancing.

There was life in this girl: her spirit was dazzling, and Vicente never felt so much that God must still smile on her as when she caught these glimpses of it. It was a scourge on her soul to know that the she-devil, that unworthy creature, had been given this spirit and this smile every day they had known each other.

( _It didn't stop at smiles. She told me, to hurt me: she told me of the abhorrent acts she was coerced into, unnatural between women as sodomy must be between men. What a monster Rockford must be. Who could sully such sweetness?_ )

Who indeed?

Kaito had wandered over to the river. She must have anticipated Vicente’s warnings and tread its banks carefully, only peering over a very little to inspect the pond-skaters at the edges, between the reeds, or the small fish that scattered over the stones. Vicente stayed in the trees, watching. She watched the curve of the girl’s throat as she looked down, she watched the way she brushed her hair behind her ear, she watched the way she (incorrigible) lifted up her skirts and the slender ankles that peeked out underneath them, and with the ghost of warmth in her hand, she thought about how it would feel to have that body in her arms.

Vicente had begun to have dreams she could speak of to no one. She dreamt of blood-red hair spread out over white sheets, of lips kissed just as red, and that laughing voice drawn taut into cries of pleasure. She dreamt of that night in her cabin on the _Santiago_ , and while part of her was only appalled by her own behaviour, the rest of her remembered Kaito’s body in the soaked shift that had clung to her pink skin.

It was hot as only Spanish summers could be, but the heat rising to Vicente’s cheeks wasn’t because of that. When she realised what it was, what she was feeling _again_ , she was struck with such disgust at herself that she almost fled the scene. Shame kept her standing. The eyes of a brother, Raul had said, mocking all the while — and Vicente had meant to be only a sister, like she was to Leo. Truly, she had meant for that. Even when unspeakable thoughts had begun to haunt her, she had told herself they meant nothing. The dreams were dreams, and everyone dreamt of things unrelated to reality, but to carry it into the daylight was repugnant.

She had only meant to watch and wait for Kaito to get bored, but now the act felt voyeuristic. She was reminded of a story Alonso had told them.

It was a folk tale she had heard, she said, from some of the ladies from the papal states when on campaign with her estranged husband, at some point before the Battle of Lepanto. It was of a young girl in a red cloak who tried to take food to her grandmother deep in the forest and was hunted by a wolf. Much had been made of the terror of the girl knowing she was being watched and followed by something that wanted to eat her: in its desire, the wolf had broken into the grandmother’s house and devoured her, waiting for the girl to come to its waiting jaws.

Kaito’s red hair waved in the wind. In the shade, Vicente’s hand closed over the rough bark of a tree, her knuckles going white.

( _I_ _’m not like that. I’m not like the she-devil: I have no such designs, no such desires._ )

But she remembered how Kaito’s lips had felt when she’d been forced to use the Elysian technique on her. She remembered how her body had felt each and every time she had carried her. She remembered everything, always, and she knew that her feelings had never been as they were for Leo.

Sick to her stomach, she took a step back, away from the light where she might be seen. Girls might sometimes play-act love with each other, but even Kaito was almost past that age now, and she herself was long past girlhood: there was no excuse for what she felt. Eyes flashed gold on the backs of her eyelids, brimming with mirth. Safe, she had said. From the start she had believed Kaito would be safe with her, woman with woman, but how could she be when licentious thoughts plagued Vicente so relentlessly that she had to admit that they might be what she really felt?

( _How can there be forgiveness for this? I pose as a man and feel the love, the desire of a man, and am not one: am I not then an abomination? What is honour, duty, when my very existence must offend anyone_ _’s decency?_ )

With the taste of bile in her throat, she wondered then if all of her vitriol directed at the English she-devil might not now poison her: wasn’t she one worse? At least the she-devil lived as a woman. At least _she_ —

‘Vicente, you look like you’re about to be sick.’

Blood thrashed in her ears when she blinked, finally seeing the scene in front of her again. Kaito had lost interest in the river and was frowning, her eyebrows turned up in adorable concern.

‘I…I’m feeling the heat,’ she said, affixing a smile to her face. ‘It’s nothing.’

‘What were you thinking about?’

She wasn’t good at dissimulation: without thinking, she said, ‘The story Señora de Leiva told us the other day. About the wolf.’

‘Oh, Little Red Riding Hood?’

‘Is that what it was called?’

‘It might as well be. Why were you thinking about _that?_ ’ she asked, wrinkling her nose. At a gesture from her, Vicente’s legs began to walk again, mechanically following where she was led.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, fighting the urge to go closer, to take Kaito’s hand if she’d let her. ‘Just…your hair.’

‘Oh?’ She looked up, twisting some of her fringe between two fingers. ‘Oh. Oh, I guess. I’ve never really liked that one, if I’m honest: it’s kind of gruesome. I know all fairy-tales are, but…’

‘Fairy-tales?’

‘Children’s stories. Anyway, I feel like wolves get a bad rap in most of them, and that just feels like the sort of thing that’ll lead to a lot of wolf-hunting and near extinction down the line, so you’ve got to be careful.’

Vicente was by now used to some of the mysterious things Kaito said and didn’t question them. She didn’t think she had the energy. It was hard enough to breathe normally. Repulsed by herself, she couldn’t move closer: they walked with distance between them, and she tried to remember how she had ignored this before.

‘Actually,’ Kaito said, looking up through the trees at the sky, ‘the Princess of Eboli was telling me a different story about a wolf yesterday. It was when I told her we were going to the convent: I know a bit about the Franciscans now but I don’t know that much about Francisco de Asís so I asked her, and she was telling me some of the old stories. There was one about a wolf: it was something like…the wolf was terrorising a village, as wolves don’t actually do, and the saint was called on to help the villagers. Most people would have tried to kill it, but of course Francisco was a saint so he couldn’t possibly do that, and instead faced the wolf and, trusting in God’s protection, gave it a good telling off and offered it peace. I prefer that one. Maybe it’s not as good of a story, but I prefer that one.’

The space between them gaped, and Vicente tried to speak normally. ‘It does you credit to prefer it.’

‘Oh, I don’t like it because it’s about a saint: I like the forgiveness, the emphasis on peace, that sort of thing,’ Kaito explained airily.

‘That sort of peace is only possible at the hands of saints, I think,’ Vicente said, crushing pine needles underfoot and releasing their particular scent. ‘That’s the point.’

‘You’re supposed to emulate saints, though, aren’t you? I think it’d be nice if everyone could try to be a bit more like him and just talk things out. Try and love the big bad wolf, you know: that sort of thing.’

She smiled, looking over at Vicente and holding out a hand. What could Vicente do but take it? Their hands clasped over the middle of the path, and slowly they came closer together.

‘Would you…’ she began, and had to start again. ‘Would you prefer for Señora de Leiva to accompany us next time?’

‘I don’t see why she should. She’s having such a good time with the princess — but you’d better invite her at least once or twice,’ she warned. ‘She’ll get lonely and cry if you don’t.’

‘I don’t see that that’s my problem.’

‘Oh, you wouldn’t, would you?’ Kaito sighed, but she smiled anyway. ‘What’s wrong with you today? You’re all tense, and you haven’t tried to take my hand or kiss my forehead or anything even once: it’s not like you.’

‘I thought…with everything Raul said…’

‘No one’s watching, are they? It’s just us. Go on: I’m going to think you’re mad at me if you don’t.’

That couldn’t be permitted: shaking, but only a very little, Vicente bent down and kissed the forehead presented to her. For a moment, the world was still. Vicente was not a fraud, not a monster, not a sinner: with everything stripped back, she was just a woman, and the girl in front of her was just a girl, and there was nothing to hide.

It was only with Kaito that she could feel like this. Her visions would save Vicente’s country; perhaps her kindness would save Vicente herself.

Vicente would have got on her knees and worshipped her then, but she knew Kaito wouldn’t like it. Instead, she moved back and mirrored her smile, hoping that her love could be felt through gestures alone.


End file.
